


The Spark and the Captive

by mangacrack



Series: what you did in the dark [1]
Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Background Slash, Drabble, Drama, Gen, Incest, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-07
Updated: 2014-02-07
Packaged: 2017-11-09 09:20:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/453887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mangacrack/pseuds/mangacrack
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Melkor was never evil, he was simply himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. First Word

**Author's Note:**

> There will be some exploring of relationships on my behalf. I never did like with tradition and clichés and I will happily stomp them into the ground. As good as I will be able to, because this is my first Tolkien story. My eternal thanks belongs to trollmela, who was kind enough to beta read.

My name is Melkor. 

I’m burning. I’m burning, burning so much it hurts.  
This is what I know. 

There’s only hurt. Hurt, pain and anguish. It’s blinding. Perhaps it’s the light that hurts, or the blinding light reflects my pain, but oh … it never ends. So I don’t care. I _cannot_ care. The pain is taking all I have and what I have is not enough. 

It will never be enough. 

I open what must be my mouth, because I begin to scream. It’s not a beautiful sound, because it only reflects my pain. I’m beyond forming words, so I put the only plea I can think of into this scream. 

_Make it stop._


	2. Fire

I’m still burning. My fire is still consuming me. Flames are engulfing me and reflect my mood. Right now I’m lighting the sky with short intense flashes ( _lightning_ , they will call it later) and my _brothers_ and _sisters_ carefully make room. 

Oh, I despise them. Those who look at me carefully and then back away, because they fear me. Fear me. I wonder why. I repeat the words in my mind. Definition, the exact meaning of a word, is everything. 

Fear. Me. 

Fear: an unpleasant emotion.   
Me: pronoun, first person singular.

It does make sense. I’m the first singular person Eru has created (I cannot say _Father_. The definition does not fit in my perspective) and _fear_ is the belief that someone ( _me_ ) or something ( _my fire_ ) is dangerous (perhaps), likely to cause pain (true) or a threat. 

The last one I do not understand. Danger and the cause of pain come from the possibility of being harmed by me. This is likely for everyone, who isn’t close to me or ready to feed my flames ( _paying tribute or showing respect_ ), because it takes a great effort not to burn. Not to consume everything around me. 

Does it make me a threat? 

I have to admit: Yes. 

Yes, I’m a threat. First and foremost to Yavanna, who leaves her belongings lying around. Yavanna especially resents my flames, me burning her, because it _hurt_ s. 

It hurts her to be burnt. It hurts me not to burn.   
(And it hurts me to hurt her.) 

Eru, did you create us to be hurt and cause harm to other only?


	3. Wind

The pain, the never-ending anguish … eases one day. Slowly I open my eyes for the first time and suddenly I’m able to see.  
What I see is … light. Glorious light.

I’m still burning, there’s still the hurt and the pain, but something is trying to soothe it. Carefully, like a caress of a young child.

Humiliation sweeps through me. This is a such a sweet breeze and feels so good that I feel shame for wanting all of it. But I wonder who I would hurt again, if I burned so high and bright. Already I am a danger and a threat to the others around me. They call me a discord in the music for they fear so much, what I could do to them. What would I do to them, had I all of this air that is surrounding me, feeding me until I could burn freely.

 _What are you?_ I finally ask. _Who are you?_

For I see nothing, only my own flames dancing in ecstasy.

I receive an answer.

 _Manwë_ , my brother says. _And I’m Air._

_What are you doing?_

I have to ask, I have to know, because never in all the eternities with Ilúvater have I felt like this before.  
Free. Free from pain and therefore: happy. Later, ages later, I would settle for the word ‘drugged’.

It would be easier to live with.

 _I’m Air_ , Manwë repeats with a strange patience, like he is pointing out the obvious (to a blind). _I’m feeding you or else you would die._

I shudder, when I feel that another law is written into the Great Music, binding Manwë’s fate and mine forever.

“Air feeds Fire”, Eru Ilúvater intervenes with this new order and creates the first of many, many chains.

This is also the first time I feel an intense dislike for Ilúvater.

 

When Manwë calls Eru Father I learn the word **hate.**


	4. The Nature of Evil.

I will admit - if only to myself - that many unfortunate souls got caught between my and Ilúvater's argument.  
I never directly confronted Eru with my questions and he never truly explained his decisions.

Why wasn’t I allowed to create, when he benevolent granted Aulë to keep his dwarves? Favouritism, I thought. Of course I intended to harm everyone, who sided with Eru for this betrayal. It was easy to be malevolent and follow actions that one could describe as profoundly immoral.

Especially for me, they whispered later.

Hadn’t I always been extremely unpleasant for others around me, even in my kindest hour? Hadn’t I brought disaccord into the Great Music with trying to burn Eru’s creation from the very beginning?

Never mind that burning is what I’m supposed to do.

Eru created me the way I am and he had to see, what I started to believe and never came to comfort me.

The conviction that I was meant to end the creation of Arda from the very moment I came into existence hurt me more than anything else that ever burned me. More than that Aulë was allowed to keep his dwarves, more than Mairon's misplaced loyalty in me. More than the knowledge that Manwë would never be able to hate me, no matter how far I would turn from him.

How could everything of this compare to the fact that I was a slave to Eru’s plans? I cannot escape, because he did not grant me free will and it means that he has taken everything I do during my rebellion into account already.

Now tell me, I am cruel? Personally I believe I am not, even though I cannot deny, not to have caused others great pain. But isn’t this what I am supposed to do? Isn’t this, what I am supposed to be?

To cause fear and pain? To be the darkness?  
To be evil?

I wonder if there’s a single soul that has even philosophized about the strange occurrence that I was able to feel fear, when Fingolfin approached me.

The Valar are not supposed to feel.

Fear, I learnt, is essential to every living. The fear of death, the fear to be hurt.  
Without this fear, they would not learn caution or appreciation.

I am not evil. I want to be alive.


End file.
